Traveling prayers
by DarksideOfTheMoon342
Summary: This story is after Cas' death. He's in angel heaven, which is completly different than the place humans go after death. Sam prays to Cas, and Cas hears him. possible destial story. I like them together. Rated M, for later chapters, just in case.ReviewPlz
1. Chapter 1

Dean couldn't find his new Metallica zippo lighter that he had just bought from a gas station a few miles back. You rarly found old rock lighters in places like gas stations anymore. Usually you'd get a selection of the usual peace signs, cherries, wolves or some other gay shit like that. He looked underneath every seat, in his duffle in the back seat. His brother knew better than to take his stuff, and besides, Sam kind of hated Metallica. Well, it wouldn't hurt to check.

"Sam," Dean yelled across the parking lot, as Sam was returning from the office after he had checked them out.

"Yeah," Sam hollered back.

"Where's my metallica lighter?"

"I don't know, did you double check under the seats," Sam asked, returning to his normal volume, as he had reached the car by now.

"Yep."

"Well, I didn't take it." Sam said, with a slight defensive attitude.

"I didn't say you did. Hey, do you think I left it in the room?"

"Nope, I triple quadruple checked that place. We didn't leave anything behind."

"Maybe I should check the trunk," Dean said, as he moved to the rear of the car.

He opened the weapons box, just in case he did some air head thing, and tucked it in one of the compartments next to a gun or something. Nope, not there. He searched in the other bags back there, but still nothing. He opened the last bag, which had a familiar tan piece of cloth on top. Dean lifted it out and it was Cas' trench coat. He had no idea why he had thought to search this little bag. All that was inside was a few things that Dean kept for keepsakes. There was a cracked and soot stained porclain angel from his old baby room, a couple old pictures, a beetles shirt of his mom's that he had found in the untouched laundry room of the burned down house, Sam's favorite old binky from when he was a baby, and the most recent addition, Cas' trench coat. Well, not anymore, since it was in his hand. Dean knew that it still had Jimmy's blood on the collar, and the inside of the sleeve. He had washed it himself, while Sammy had his twelve hour nap after the death of Cas. Dean looked at the damn thing, and got angry all over again. Why, Cas?

When Dean heard the car door slam as Sam got back out of the car, he quickly stuffed the jacket back in the bag, and closed the trunk.

"You okay, Dean?"

"Yeah," Dean lied.

Dean put his hand in his left pocket to retrieve his keys, when he had put them in the right. His fingers hit solid metal, and when he pulled the item out of his pocket he found his metallica lighter. He got into the car wearing a small smile, laughing at his own stupidity, and temporarily forgetting about the trench coat.

"Look what I found," he said to Sammy, holding up the item in his hand for his brother to see.

"Huh, where'd you find it?"

"Left jacket pocket," he said, as he turned the keys in the ignition, "I could have sworn I checked all my pockets before I went crazy searching the car."

Sam shrugged and said, "Well, now that you have it, let's get going. Monsters don't slay themselves."

That night, after the hunt, Sam snuck out to the car, to see what had distracted Dean yesterday, when he had gone searching the trunk for his lighter. He had already taken a peak at the bags in the room, but nothing had caught his eye. There were only a few things left in the trunk. A small bag caught his attemtion. He had already seen what was inside when Dean had died.

There was a lump in the bag that hadn't been there before. Sam unzipped the bag and came face to face with Cas' trench coat. He placed his hand on the coat, and bowed his head. He didn't know where Cas was, if he even still existed somewhere, but he went ahead and prayed anyway.

"Cas, I will never forgive you. I have to watch my brother have nightmares every night because of you. We have to clean up _your_ mess now. My brother has been through enough! Its enough."

0-0-0-0

The bright being that had been Castiel, Angel of the Lord, became aware for the first time in a long time. He had been adrift in the bright light of other angels that had passed into this realm from the last. They were one, and many. They had no more sense of identity, and they couldn't remember their pasts. But one voice came to Cas and broke through the buzz in his mind. "Cas, I will never forgive you... My brother has been through enough! Its enough."

As Cas lay adrift amongst the sea of souls, seperate for the first time in a long time, he had a few stray thoughts. 'I am Castiel, Angel of the Lord,' and 'Dean... Who's Dean?'

Cas was about to let himself doze back into the bliss of oblivion again, but one more thing broke through his consciousness, a memory. He remembered the feel of a tired, broken vessel, and holding onto a powerful force inside him. He remembered the feel of cold concrete underneath his body.

"I feel regret about you and what I did to..."

He knew that the name he mentioned in the memory matched the voice that had called him back. He couldn't remember the name to go with the memory of the man. He could remember how his lips moved, but there was no sound to the movement, and he couldn't remember what sounds each movement was suppose to make.

The memory continued, "yeah, well you should."

"If there was time, if I was strong enough I'd- I'd fix him now. I just wanted to make amends before I die." That one was his voice.

"Okay."

There was a pause, then he asked, "Is it working?"

"Does it make you feel better," asked the other voice.

"No."

"You?"

"Not a bit."

Cas had a flash of the guy he was talking to in the memory, but then it was gone, and he had a hard time remembering the exact shade of his hair, and eyes. Brown was the word that came to mind, but that had no meaning to a man who couldn't easily recall anything from his life. All that he could remember clearly was the calling of the other angels who were trying to bring him back into the fold. Slowly, Cas spread out across the gap he had made to touch the entity beside him. Gabriel. His essance reached out to the other side. Anna.

Castiel came together with all the others, and lost himself again, but he was different from what he had been before. He knew his name. It was Cas. All the others knew that he was Cas, and saw that he had been and individual. They resented him for breaking the flow of eternal peace.

When Cas rejoined the collective, Anna had a recollection as well. She remembered the feeling of lips brushing against her own, in the softest of good-bye kisses. She remembered what it was like to be kissed, and she rejoiced in the feeling of it.


	2. Chapter 2

Dean, and Sam just stood there in the hospital hallway, staring at Bobby's body, as the doctors called a code and tried to revive their uncle. Just twenty minutes ago Dean had almost punched a guy out for even suggesting that Bobby might die, and now he was just standing here, watching it happen. Since Bobby got shot he had been fighting to keep his temper in check, fighting back the tears. He had been fighting every negative emotion known to man, dread, fear, anger, self-loathing, hate for that laviathin bastard that had shot Bobby, terrible sadness, loss of hope, and now he was just numb. Now He felt nothing.

A tear fell from his eye, and he quickly wiped it away. Dean just stood there, with his arms crossed, and his feet a few inches apart. He was ready for a fight at any time, but there wasn't anything to fight here. Reapers were invisible, so you couldn't fight them. So he just stayed there, feeling useless... Again. What would it take for his heart to break? He felt like he could die from this. This was one straw too many.

Sam looked at his brother, to check to see if Dean would have a break down, or any emotional outbreak what so ever. After a bit of time, watching Dean stand there, he walked away. He got in the elevator down the hall, and then followed all the signs untill he reached the outside of the hospital. When the cool breeze hit his cheeks, he knew that he was going to throw up, so he did. He got sick, right there in the bushes. Sam could only identify one emotion in his heart at the moment, and that was tired depression. He was tired of trying to keep it together for Dean, he was tired of worrying about Dean, and at the same time he knew that, in the next minute, he'd be worried again. He was tired of getting the shittiest card in the deck with every dealing.

Sam once had known this girl in college who had a hippie outlook on life. Sam had told her about the falling out with his family, and she had said that life was like counting cards in blackjack. Sometimes the cards were in the positive, and sometimes they were in the negative, but you always end up with the neutral number of zero in the end, so things will always even out. He could see now that Francine had been so full of it!

Sam eventually went back into the hospital. He grabbed a soda from the vending machine before he went in to check on Dean. Dean was sitting in a chair only a few inches from where he had been standing when Sam had last seen him. He was still staring, only he had moved his eyes to his lap, as he held his head in his left hand. They had taken Bobby down to the morgue. A nurse came over, as soon as she saw that Sam had returned.

"I tried to talk to your brother about this stuff," she said in a soft tone, reserved for the bereaved, "but he just told me to talk to you."

"That's probably for the best," Sam said, as he cleared his throat, and took the clipboard.

As morbid as it was, it was his turn to take care of the after death papers. Dean had taken custody of Dad's body after he had died. The nurse tried to explain the forms and the procedure to him, but Sam waved her off, saying that there was no need for an explanation.

"You've been through this before."

"My Dad died a few years back, and we were the next of kin. Now that Uncle Bobby's gone, well, we're the only family he has left."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"Yeah, thanks," Sam said, forcing a small smile across his lips.

The nurse hesitated, and then when Sam looked up at her, she looked embarrassed. She dug into a pocket on her sweater, and pulled out a little rosary pin and handed it over to Sam. When Sam tooked the proferred trinket, she explained, "My mother is Catholic, and she gives me all these different saint pins. I usually just dump them in a tray downstairs in the chapel. I keep a few handy though. That one is St. Paul, Patron saint of the bereaved. I don't pray to saints, myself, but sometimes the stories of the saints bring comfort to some. I pray to my grandmother who died of cancer when I was twelve. Anyway, sometimes it helps to pray to someone, no matter who it is. I don't mean to push religion on you, if you don't believe, but studies show that prayer and meditation does change brain chemistry, and it lets the body relax. I always feel a little bit better afterwards. So... I just didn't want to leave you here when you, and especially your brother, seem to have a need for comfort in your loss."

Sam looked at this tiny girl who could be no bigger than five three, and felt a little touched. She really was trying to help. He grabbed her hand and squeezed it, thanking her once more, and asked her name. Her name was Lucy, or Lucinda, named after her grandmother.

When Sam went back to his papers, Lucy went to go sit by Dean's right side. She didn't touch him, because she had noticed how he had reacted to Dr. Chande when he had asked about organ donation. She just sat there, hoping that her presence would help him somehow. Finally, he spoke to her, even though he still hadn't looked at her.

"What are you doing here?"

"I just didn't want you to be left alone in here."

He finally looked at her and he just looked so lost that her heart went out to him. He leaned back in his chair with a sigh. His hand was on the armrest between them, and she very gently took ahold of his hand and gave it a little squeeze. They sat like that, both of them kind of slouched back in their chairs, hands connected, untill Sam came to tell Dean that it was time to go.

Sam said good-bye to Lucy and Dean gave her hand a small squeeze, before rising to his feet. Eventually Lucy had to go to work again, and so she did. She checked on a few patients with a blood pressure cuff, and thermometer. She helped turn Mrs. Ebstein because she couldn't turn on her own with a bad hip. On and on her day went, as she thought of the guy named Dean and his sad eyes.

0-0-0-0

Dean got wasted drunk that night, knowing that he would have to go to Bobby's funeral tomorrow, sweating liquor, but he didn't care. Sam took his keys from him when he declared his intentions to go to a bar, and so Dean had to walk there and back. It was all worth it. He walked home in the cool evening, swearing at God, the Laviathin named Dick, and even Cas. When he ran out of terrible things to say he started singing ribald songs. Eventually he got stuck on a gross version of the "Old Mother Hubbard" nursery rhyme.

By the time he got home to the motel, he was swaying back and forth across the sidewalk, and then the parking lot. He landed on the hood of his car, and climbed on top, putting his boots on the shiny grill, but he didn't give a shit. He had heard that nurse Lucy talking to Sam about praying, so he rolled onto his back, and when he was sprawled out from end to end, he began to pray. He didn't pray to God, because he knew for a fact that the guy wasn't listening. He didn't pray to that St. Paul guy because he didn't know nor care to know who that guy was. He prayed to Cas, dead, and gone Cas... But weren't all his people gone, now-a-days? Everybody but Sam, poor, sad Sam who would have to bulldoze him out of bed tomorrow.

"Cas," he said, "Bobby's gone, and I don't know how to get revenge on this thing that killed him. I know that you have helped me out of many hairy situations before, and you plucked me from the fires of hell. You turned your back on your orders in order to fight by my side. You dropped by whenever I truly needed you, even though you had bad problems of your own. What I'm trying to say is that I forgive you. And I'm willing to carry my share, but... I don't how. I need you to help me. I need you, Cas."

When there was no answer, of course there wasn't going to be an answer, Cas was gone, tears fell from the corner of Dean's eyes. He quickly sat up to wipe the moisture away. 'Woah. Not a good idea.' he thought as the world took another dizzying turn around its axis. He leaped off his car before he could mess up the nice wax finish, and threw up in the parking lot. He wouldn't be surprised if he had a mild case of alcohol poisoning.

Dean went inside to call it a night, only to be woken four hours later to worship before the porclain thrown, not once, not twice, but three times. And the fourth one hardly counted because there was nothing more to upchuck but bile.

"Sammy, I need something to drink!"

0-0-0-0

Cas heard Dean's slurred prayer from where he was. If the angels that were in heaven with him, had any eyeballs to roll, they all would have done so, as Cas' memories started nudging at his consciousness once more. He remembered drinking with a woman named Ellen, and her daughter named... He couldn't remember. He clunked down his twentieth shot, as the bartender (whatever that was) had done with her two shots.

"Feel anything yet?"

"Uh... No."

"Nothing?"

"Nothing," he confirmed.

"Hot damn, that was your twentieth shot! I wonder how much it would take to get you drunk."

He also remembered what it was like to get drunk, and how much it took, an entire liquor store, apparently. He remembered posing in a picture with Bobby, Ellen, Ellen's daughter, Dean, and Dean's brother. Dean's brother was named... Dean's brother was... .. Sam? It felt right...

Cas sat seperate from the others again. This time they had been the ones to withdraw from him. For some of them, they weren't sure if they wanted to remember. Heaven was more blissful than they had ever hoped to have. Remembering drove that bliss away, even if it wasn't their own memories.

Cas sat there for a long time after that last memory trying to think, trying to remember some more. For the longest time nothing came, then a faded voice came to him, it was his own.

"I'm going to find a way to redeem myself to you."

That was it, that's all that he was going to remember. He reached out tentatively to the others, but they shrunk away from his tendrils. They rejected, and shunned him. It wasn't anything new, he had somehow come to expect it from his brothers and sisters. He didn't know why he thought that, but he knew that it was true. So he sat there, all by himself, waiting, waiting for a voice to call for him again.


	3. Chapter 3

Cas felt pain, and fear. He didn't have anyone to fear in this realm, and nobody was hurting him, so he guessed it was somthing coming from them, the two that called to him. It had been a long time since he felt anything but loneliness. The other angels had cast him out, because of his connection to the other world. They didn't want to feel, think or remember. They stayed away from Cas because they feared that he would infect them. They worried that his presence would scare away their precious gift of bliss. The fear, though, the fear that Cas was now feeling started reaching over the chasm between him and the other angels. They had no choice but to shove him out of heaven. And when Cas was shoved out, he could go only to one place, and that was the reality where Dean lived.

It took Castiel a few minutes to figure out how his wings worked as his body spiraled out of control, and started plummeting towards the earth. Back in the other plane of existance, Cas had no need for wings, because there had been no gravity, or sense of time or space. He was learning quickly how to use his body again, though, and he was now able to steer himself towards the soul that was calling him. He was able to reach out to Dean's mind before he showed himself in his true form.

"Dean, don't hesitate or ask questions. Just cover your face, and Sam's too. I'm coming to save you, but I don't have a vessel."

Dean listened to the voice in his head, and he knew that it was his long lost angel buddy, Castiel, somehow, back from the dead. He did as he was told, and covered both his own, and his brother's face. Sam was unconcious, but Dean knew that it was a bad thing if he came to with Cas' true form in the room.

Even though he was covering his face with his coat, and his eyes were closed the bright light coming off the angel in the room was brilliantly white. He heard some sounds that could only be described as laviathin growls. It also sounded as if several tanks were having a war. Then, all of a sudden, Dean was back in the hotel room kneeling on a bed. He was still holding Sam's face to his chest, trying to get his bearings straight. Angel transport was always such an unnerving process, made all the more unsettling because he hadn't done it in such a long time. Dean finally let go of Sam's upper body, and just plopped him on the bed.

He went to the other hotel bed and sat down, marveling on the fact that Cas was back after two years of being dead. Maybe there was an afterlife for angels after all. Maybe God had brought him back again. He didn't know how this all had happened. He just knew to be thankful, especially because him and Sam were suppose to truly and finally be done for, this time.

0-0-0-0

It took Cas an entire month to get a seventeen year old boy to say yes to him. In that time Dean was able to fully freak out, then calm down, then fully freak out again. He worried, every hour of every day, even when he didn't show it. Sam and Dean went back to Bobby's place, in the mean time. They didn't go on any hunts, or search out the laviathin in that time. Of course they felt a little guilty in neglecting their duties as hunters, but to tell the truth, they were pretty shaken up by their close call, and the close encounter of the Cas kind.

Dean just couldn't focus on something like hunting, when he was constantly being distracted by worries of where Cas had gone off to. What if this had been a freak, one time thing. Maybe he had died, and was now hallucinating this shit as some sort of freak torture in hell or something. He didn't know exactly what to think, and he was scared that Cas had gone back home, and left him here again.

Man, it was kind of scaring him how obsessed his mind was getting over the sudden appearance of Cas. He guessed that he had had a secret hope that Cas would come to save him when he needed it, same as he had always done. He felt a little less of a man, admitting to it, even if it was only to himself. It made him look like a god damn damzle in distress.

One day, in the middle of August, exactly thirty-three days after Cas' rescue, a seventeen year old boy knocked on Bobby's door. He had medium brown hair that he wore to his ears, and kind green eyes. He was really handsome, with good looks that would last even when he was done with puberty.

Dean answered the door. "May I hel-"

Dean didn't finish his sentence as he recognized who it was. He hugged Cas in a tight embrace. Eventually, Cas' arms wrapped around Dean in return. He didn't ever remember Dean showing him so much affection. He thought that Dean was braking his own rule about aproapriate space, and there wasn't even an excuse for a picture. After a minute or two, Dean thumped his back twice, and backed up.

"I was thinking that I would use the front door, so that you wouldn't think I was an intruder, since I'm wearing a different vessel."

When Dean heard Cas speak it was a little unnerving to hear. He had gotten so use to Cas wearing Jimmy Novak's meat suite, that it was strange to hear a teenager's younger voice come out. But then, he spoke with the same emotionless drone of a tone, and he knew that it was Cas again.

"Well, that was good thinking on your part," Dean replied.

"Well, why don't you come inside now," Dean said, as he wrapped his arm around the reborn angel's shoulders, "Sam isn't going to believe you're here. He thought I had made the whole thing up about our miraculous survival."

"What did he think happened?"

"Beats me. Anyway, how did you get this poor kid to agree to letting you in?"

"His parents sent him to boarding school for misbehavior. He felt that he had a lot to make up for. When I told him that I was an angel, he became worried that he wouldn't make it to heaven when he died. So he turned his life over to me, the lord's angel, to make up for his misdeeds."

"Well, I hope you plan on treating this kid better than you did poor Jimmy. At least your brothers aren't around to blow you up."

"Yes, well, there's still the laviathin."

"Sammy," Dean yelled up the stairs.

"In a minute," came the yelled response.

"Must be in the oval office," Dean said to himself.

"The oval office?"

"Yeah, its another name for the crapper, Cas. You know, the bathroom."

"I see."

Dean laughed.

"What's so funny?"

"Nothing, man. I'm just glad that your back. I missed you," Dean replied, as he slapped Cas on the back one more time.

"I missed you too," Cas said.

"So, where have you been," Dean asked, as he grabbed three beers, and offered one to Cas, and motioning to the seat across the table.

When Cas sat down, he took a sip of his beer, and placed it back on the table.

"Its hard to remember now, but I think that I was in a heaven for the angels."

Sam came down the stairs after that, and stopped midstep when he saw their guest.

"Who's that?"

"Its Cas," Dean said, looking over his shoulder at his brother.

"Really," he asked, looking at Cas doubtfully.

"It really is me, Sam," Cas comfirmed, "I know that you are confused because of this new vessel, but I had to replace my old vessel. It was destroyed when I died."

Sam smiled, as he stepped off the stairs, and went to the table to join the guys in having a beer.

"It is good to see you, Cas," Sam admitted.

"I'm pleased to see you again, as well. I heard your prayer, but I don't remember any of the content."

"Maybe that's for the best," Sam responded, with a shrug and a frown.

Dean looked between Cas and his brother, wondering what Sam could have possibly prayed to the angel for. Maybe it was best to be forgotten? What the hell did that mean?

"I remember you prayed to me too, Dean," Cas said, interrupting his thoughts. If Dean was the blushing type, he would've been as red as a tomato. He didn't remember what he had prayed about, but he had been drunk, and he could have said anything. He feinted an interest in the the lable of his beer bottle, hoping that Cas didn't remember his prayer either.

"I'm sorry that Bobby passed because I know that you guys probably miss him. I know that he made it to heaven. He lead a full life, at least for a hunter. He's probably up there with his wife right now."

Sam's eyes went to the floor in sad rememberance of Bobby's passing. Cas continued to remember bits and pieces of Dean's prayer.

"You were very drunk," Cas stated.

"Yeah," Dean agreed, as he took another swig of beer.

"Was this when we had come back from the hospital, when you started puking at like midnight?"

"Yep."

"Do you really forgive me," Cas asked.

Dean's eyes snapped up to Cas, and Sam looked at his brother, taken by surprise that he would forgive so easily. "Yeah. I do forgive you Cas. Its all water under the bridge, or whatever. The point is that your back, and you've saved our asses again."

"Its the least I can do after creating this mess in the first place."

"Yeah, about the saving of our asses.. Are they dead?"

"No, I was only able to deflect their attacks long enough to get us all out of there. I have no way of killing them. They are not like demons which I can vanquish with a touch, and as far as I know they are not vulnerable to an angel sword. Besides, I no longer have my weapon. I will have to get a new one made, if I need it."

"Shit. Well, we at least have you here to help, Cas. We found out that they have a reaction to a certain chemical. We've been able to capture a few, hose them down, chop off their heads, and we bury their heads far away from their bodies. Its a temporary solution untill we find a permanent fix, but it helps."

Sam scoffed at the temporary solution, "Their really hard to capture, and their leader is growing in influence. If he gets into the white house or something, we're screwed. We're also unable to find all their experiments on time."

"Maybe I can help you keep track of them better, and I'll start a search for a better weapon."

"Sounds great,"Dean enthused, "I'm just so glad that your back Cas."

The three sit back and enjoy their beers. For now, work can wait. As they sit and drink they talk about past cases, and what the laviathin were up to now. When the Winchesters decide its time for them to get some shut eye, Cas sticks around. He closes his eyes and is content to just sit there and feel Dean's presence in the room, listening to his breathing as the man dreams.


	4. Chapter 4

_A/N: This chapter is very short. I originally was planning on posting it with more to it, but then I decided to post this piece as is. I'll post the rest later when I finish._

Months after Cas' return, the angel was sitting on the couch next to Dean. Cas was watching television, and Dean was scanning the sports section of the newspaper. He didn't usually read for fun, but scanning the sports section was somthing he did when he had lived with Lisa. It felt pleasantly normal, and so he was indulging in the leisurely activity when Cas spoke up.

"Dean?"

"Yeah, Cas?"

"I hate being a teenager," Cas responded.

"Why's that?"

"Well... I think this discussion is heading in a direction that you won't like."

Dean looked at Cas with suspicion, over the top of the newspaper. He remembered when he was in high school, and how he tried making out with every girl he could find. He remembered how frustrating it was that teenage girls didn't put out with guys who were going to be in town for only a few days, or weeks. Maybe this conversation was going to be about the sex drive of teenagers. Great! Why was he discussing this with him? Sam would probably be a better choice.

"Are you meaning to tell me your about to talk to me about your sex drive?"

Cas squirmed uncomfortably, as Dean gave him an incredulous look. Dean smirked a little, when Cas' back was turned. He hadn't showed any nervousness discussing things like this before. He figured that it was because Cas didn't go back and forth between heaven and earth anymore. He had been sticking around a lot for the past few months.

"Yes," Cas answered, looking him in the eye. Dean could tell that he was trying to be his old, confident, self.

"Wouldn't you rather be talking to Sam about this stuff?"

"No, I do not."

"Okay, well maybe what you need is a girlfriend, or better yet, a one night stand."

"I'm not very good at socializing. You and Sam are probably the only ones who don't think I'm weird. Besides, I think most women don't want a younger guy, and I can't imagine being with a teenager. I've been around for millenia, and I want to be with an adult."

"Yeah, that's tough," Dean commented as he tried to think of a solution.

"We could always get you a fake ID, and get you laid at least. Oh wait! We've done that," Dean said with a smile as he remembered the disaster of getting Cas laid with a hooker.

"Well, I couldn't help her perpetuate her self-destructive behavior," Cas said in his defense.

"Well, whatever... I don't know Cas, the only thing I can suggest is masterbation. I can always buy you some skin mags. And in the mean time, maybe you'll meet a woman who doesn't think that your strange."

"What's masterbation?"

Dean started laughing. He laughed so hard that tears came to his eyes. When he finished he looked at Cas and his head was cocked to the side, just like always. Dean struggled not to laugh again. Man, it was so frickin nice to have Cas back.

"Ah, hell! Why do you always make me explain these things to you, Cas? Okay, masterbation is- is- well its when you play with your _thing_ to release tension."

"Oh."

"Come on man, don't you have the kid's thoughts to draw on?"

"Yes I do," Cas said, as it just dawned on him.

0-0-0-0

Cas had never really been affected by his vessel's urges before, with the exception of when he was around famine. But on the last hunting trip, he had seen Dean go into a house with a girl. Her curtains hadn't been drawn completly across the window when Dean and her had intercourse. He had seen them make out, and a few other things. He hadn't gotten a full visual on what was going on, but it had been enough for him to know that he was lonely.

As an angel he had no need to procreate, and had no need or urge to be in a romantic relationship. But after heaven, something had changed him. He had a hard time recalling anything about existance after death, and it seemed that the longer he stayed on this side of the veil, the more things faded. All he remembered was that his feelings of being lonely had been worse in heaven than it had ever been when he was an outcast in this dimension.

Cas was terribly lonely. Dean had gotten him skin mags, but he didn't use them. He wasn't feeling like a horny little teenager. He had told Dean a "white lie". It wasn't about the sex. It was something so much deeper. He wondered if this was how humans felt all the time. He wondered if this was why people had sex so often.

Cas never went back home to where all the living angels were, not because he couldn't, or wouldn't be welcomed. He just felt like he didn't belong there. This was where he belonged, with the Winchesters. But he was still at a loss as to how to get rid of this lonely feeling.


End file.
